Sunday, July 9, 2006

Horses,casts and stuff

Brook got her cast off Friday and they put a plaster splint on her arm. She can do less with it on than she could with the cast on! She was not happy with that. He told her no swimming! She has to wear it for 3 weeks. His reasoning behind the no swimming is she would have to move her arm thru the water with force and/or may hit it on something. She has a very thin layer of new bone growth. I saw the x-rays that were taken on Friday. She did not have 3 breaks in the bone, there were 4! She was actually very lucky to not have to have any type of surgery done. After a few hours of wearing the splint I noticed her hand was swollen. Upon closer look I could see that it was discolored and cool to the touch. I knew then that she was in trouble! I loosened the bandages up and could see some improvement right away. By Friday night her hand was almost normal again. Yesterday morning her hand was again swollen and discolored. Candy's next door neighbor is a nurse and she re wrapped her arm again, this time removing the under layer of gauze and re wrapping it also.

Well anyway she almost took no swimming and the other restrictions in stride. I say almost because this week she had been attending VBS at Cowboy Church. She was also taking a beginners horsemanship class there. She was also doing goat tying! She had to drop the goat tying and almost had to drop the horsemanship class. She promised me she would not do any grabbing with her left hand and would wear the sling.

So last night they had a rodeo for the completion of VBS. I checked her hand and it was looking okay so I gave her permission to ride in the rodeo. She was riding Belle so She was riding a horse I trusted.

The rodeo was so cute. barrel racing started the show off. LOL It was a bunch of little kids that had made some stick horses! They raced around the barrels, some riding side saddle and others were trotting and galloping on top of their new horses. After the stick horse races came Horsemanship. This was the largest group by far. This was Brook's group. Some of these kids had never been on a horse before this class. My Brook rode Belle with her back straight and one handed. They had leads on all the horses but the child was to guide the horse thru the barrel race pattern. One little girl stood out. She had been riding for awhile. Her riding has all been in the horse therapy program. ( If unfamiliar with the program, here is a link that explains it. click here for Horse Therapy)She is confined to a wheelchair. She is such a small thing with a brace on her back. When she started riding she could not sit up without assistance. This child will never walk on her own but she is learning how to guide the horse!

The crowning event of the rodeo was bull riding. Yep you heard me right! Little kids riding bulls! They used miniature Brahma bulls! These little bulls bucked just as hard as their full size counterparts! 2 girls rode also and 1 placed second with her ride. There was one incident where the clown had to do a rescue. The boy's hand got caught in the rope and he could not get off. That was a bit scary!

Today Brook gets to take the splint off and move her arm some. She has to do this 5 times a day for 2 weeks then in the third week she is to increase time out of the splint. She will have new x-rays taken on the 28th and if everything looks good then she will be released. She is looking forward to that.

4 comments:

Sounds like Brook's arm is doing great. I know whe will be happy to get the splint off.A kiddie rodeo? I would be scared to death to have a child on a bull (even if it is a small one). glad everyone had fun though.

I'm glad her arm is better. I would have liked to see the rodeo it sounds cute. I had heard of horse therapy before My preacher during my high school years John Reins had Tn Walking horses and he and his wife did therapy with handicap kids. John passed away over 15 years now from a heart attack. But he loved this work with the childrenTerrie